“We don’t just have to save the Court Tavern, we have to save the world,” Patti Smith told a rapt audience Friday night at New Brunswick's State Theatre, during ar galvanizing, emotional set -- the kind that turns skeptics into believers.

Smith, along with veteran Jersey power-popsters the Smithereens and hometown legends the Slaves of New Brunswick, performed to raise funds for New Brunswick’s financially challenged Court Tavern, the last bastion for live, original music in the sprawling college town.

Bobby and Eileen Albert — whose family has owned the Court since 1981 — almost lost the club in December when the city demanded payment on overdue taxes. An anonymous donor loaned the Alberts enough to keep the club open; Friday’s benefit — organized by musician Tony Shanahan, who performs with both Patti Smith and the Slaves of New Brunswick — was intended to raise enough funds to put the embattled rock club back on firm financial ground. The show sold out, but the amount of money it generated was not available at press time.

During her set, Smith raised spirits and hopes with her unwavering positivity. “Whatever happens — with this country, with this planet, with this tavern — we can say that we were here, and that we came together,” Smith told the cheering (and predominantly middle-aged) crowd.

Although the South Jersey native admitted she had never been to the Court, members of her band — guitarists Jack Petruzelli and Lenny Kaye, and bassist-keyboardist Shanahan — have deep New Brunswick ties.

Kaye remembered growing up in New Brunswick and wanting to make music in a city where there was nowhere to play, and finally getting his chance at the student centers and frat parties of Rutgers University. “Saving the Court Tavern is important not just for the bands who play there but for the people like you who go there,” he told the crowd. “You need a place to hear your music.”

Saed Hindash/The Star-LedgerThe Smithereens performed at the State Theatre in New Brunswick, Friday, at a benefit for New Brunswick Court Tavern nightclub

Smith has undergone a remarkable metamorphosis over her 35-year career, starting as an androgynous punk poet and turning into a beatific earth mother who infuses even her old punk hits with an uplifting sense of spirituality.

Her set ranged from ‘70s material like “Free Money” (dedicated to the Alberts), “Dancing Barefoot” and “Because The Night” to more recent songs such as “Mother Rose,” and included two unlikely covers — Jim Carroll’s “People Who Died” (with Kaye and Shanahan singing verses) and an unironic take on the Ronettes’ “Be My Baby.”

The Smithereens, whose career started at the Court at the dawn of the ‘80s (“once a month for five years, until we got our foot in the door of the music business,” said frontman Pat DiNizio), turned in an equally powerful set, expanding three-minute hits like “Only A Memory” and “Top Of The Pops” into extended rock jams fueled by the melodic leads of guitarist Jim Babjak and the precise yet dynamic drumming of Dennis Diken.

The set ended with a stirring rock ‘n’ roll moment: Houselights up, the band had the audience — a capella — sing the chorus to the Who’s “Behind Blue Eyes.”

The Slaves of New Brunswick –— led by singer-songwriter Glen Burtnik and composed, mostly, of amateur musicians who grew up in the Hub City -- opened the show, playing selections from their 20-year old album that celebrates New Brunswick with songs like “Exit 9,” Kaye’s “Riding the Avenue” (which ticks off boyhood landmarks along Livingston Avenue) and “Easton Avenue Fever Dream.”